Seattle Head Tax

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INGSOC

The proposed "head tax" would apply only to those companies with $20 million or more annually in taxable gross receipts as measured under the City’s Business and Occupation tax. The city estimates that will be 500 businesses, including Amazon. Those businesses would be charged 26 cents per hour per employee up to $500 maximum per employee per year. Amazon would pay more than $20 million under the proposal, according to the Associated Press.

The tax is expected to raise $75 million per year, which the city says 75 percent would go toward affordable housing.

"From our small businesses to our start-ups, our jobs are critical to our City's economy, budget, and growth. Our workers add to the vitality of our region and support our arts, cultural, and non-profit community. I'm deeply concerned about the impact this decision will have on a large range of jobs - from our building trades, to restaurant workers, to nurses, manufacturing jobs and tech workers," Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said in a statement released to the media. "At the same time, our City must urgently address our homelessness and affordability crisis and lift up those who have been left behind. I fundamentally believe we can do both by working together. In the upcoming days, I will be bringing together Councilmembers as well business, labor and our community leaders to work together to see how we might forge common ground in dealing with our challenges while keeping jobs."

Free America

Jeff Bezos should follow Franco Beretta's lead and make a public statement that Seattle always seems to be a problem. And buy land elsewhere in a State that would appreciate the taxes he and his employees pay.

Active Member

Jeff Bezos should follow Franco Beretta's lead and make a public statement that Seattle always seems to be a problem. And buy land elsewhere in a State that would appreciate the taxes he and his employees pay.

INGSOC

Despite protests from hundreds of Seattle business leaders and voters, the Seattle City Council is ready to pass a "head tax" that may stymie business growth, negatively impact low income communities, and kill new jobs, all while funneling money into the Council coffers to take on homelessness. The ideologically driven tax blames big business for Seattle’s worsening homelessness problem, when the actual culprits are the Progressive councilmembers.

Under the leadership of Socialist City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant, with Amazon.com the main target, the Council will institute a so-called "head tax," which adds a tax of $0.26042 per hour, per employee (roughly $500 per employee) at businesses grossing (not netting) in excess of $20 million a year. This would add a $20 million dollar annual tax burden to Amazon. In total, the tax is expected to raise $75 million from the targeted business and will go towards affordable housing to address the city’s homelessness problem, though the actual plan of how the money is spent and tracked remains murky — and Sawant said she’d like to tax Amazon at four times that rate.

Union ironworkers have sided with Amazon, shouting down Councilmember Sawant for the first ten minutes during a recent anti-Amazon press conference. Consequently, Sawant and union front group Working Washington claimed Amazon should be prosecuted for “intimidating a public servant.” In other words, if you speak out against a policy position supported by Sawant and Big Labor, you’re threatened with prosecution. Former Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna called this “irresponsible” and “ludicrous” on my Seattle talk show on KTTH 770 AM (also home to the Ben Shapiro Show).

INGSOC

Starbucks and Amazon might be well-known for their thinly veiled leftist agendas, but the pair or mega-corporations are sounding mighty . . . conservative . . . following Seattle's decision to raise taxes on the city's corporate residents in order to pay for affordable housing and "homeless services."

In a statement released Tuesday morning, Starbucks Vice President Drew Herdener excoriated the city for failing to practice fiscal restraint, and instead punishing businesses for what is ultimately the city's failure.

“The city does not have a revenue problem — it has a spending efficiency problem,” Herdener said. “We are highly uncertain whether the city council’s anti-business positions or its spending inefficiency will change for the better.”

Amazon actually went before the city council to complain that Seattle was trying to push its responsibility for its own homelessness problem onto corporations, and got blasted by Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez for their lack of compassion.

INGSOC

INGSOC

The boycott list idea was started on socialist City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant’s personal Facebook page, and the discussion is as nuts as you think it would be.

Local activist Diane Rose Vincent noticed a West Seattle restaurant posted the petition backing the referendum and complained about it on Sawant’s page. Someone asked here “where is the boycott list?” noting that they had a list to boycott businesses that stood in the way of raising the minimum wage to $15/hour. Vincent replied “we’re starting one.”

When asked by another commenter to “please send me the boycott list on FB when you have it,” Vincent responded that she needed help looking up profiles that "liked" the petition post so she can identify the businesses to boycott. Indeed, she ended up calling out four businesses: Peel & Press Pizza and Spirits, which posted the petition, and three business owners that apparently "liked" the post.

When I asked Vincent about the boycott list via email, her response was kind of adorable: “There is no ‘boycott list’ that I’m aware of and I never said the word ‘boycott’. There really is no story here.”

When I emailed her a screenshot of the discussion about the boycott list, Vincent stopped responding. Oops.

The other comments on Sawant’s post are frighteningly uninformed.

One commenter asked if the businesses against the head tax realize it’s only for businesses “making over $20 million?”